Each year the famous and infamous descend on the lavish seaside town of Cannes in the south of France, to guzzle champagne and taste test the year's documentaries and feature films. Starlets flood the red carpets and film's major players hold sermons, often to themselves, from cocktail party pulpits. But if the decadence of the Cannes Film Festival starts to get to you and you can't tell the difference between your Louis Roederer and your Louis Vuitton, it's time to take a shuttle ferry to the saving solitude of Ile Saint-Honorat.

The island's history has been shaped over the past 1,600 years by its resident Cistercian monk population, and the recent regulation of ferry services, so that only the monks can guide you across to their turquoise paradise, has seen the numbers of tourists drop from 60,000 to 20,000 per annum. The monks are rather pleased. The saintly sailors, complete with crosses at their throats, ferry would-be devotees (as well as a fair number of sun worshippers) across to the tiny isle during the summer months, on the premise that tourists are on their own spiritual pilgrimage (if you want to stay at the monastery, you need to give a written reason and filling in your tan lines might not cut it).

The reason most tourists pop over to the tiny island, a drop of tranquillity in the surrounding azure sea and less than 2km off the coast, is the wine grown by the monks. They also produce honey and liqueurs, all of which you can combine for a seaside barbecue, monk-style.